Developer/designer at large.

What’s your anchor?

After launching a product, you’ll likely be inundated with feature (and support) requests. There will be features that tons of people ask for, others not so much.

The big reactions come when you make an update to your product, though. I get contacted on a daily basis by people who say my latest game is too hard. Others say it’s too easy. Some say it has a good UI, others say its really unintuitive.

It’s super important to have an anchor when faced when all this feedback is trying to pull you in different directions. An anchor in this case is an ideal that gives the good ship Startup the ability to take on the storm of this (sometimes vitrolic!) feedback.

The anchoring ideals for my app, Hipster CEO, are (in priority):

Does this change improve the player’s understanding of how a real startup works?

Does this change improve the overall app experience?

Like most things in life, these two questions are subjective so some expertise needs to be applied.

I’d encourage you, before you even begin building an app, to consider your anchors. Some good ones:

Does this change add value that people would pay more money for?

Will this feature be used by 80% or more of our customers?

Does this change come at the expense of another key feature?

Does this affect our main goal or key message?

When your business has a core belief then decision making gets a whole lot easier.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ger

Coder, designer, builder & writer of most of what you see on this website. Startup geek & retro gamer. Professional amateur & amateur professional.
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